Sensex, Nifty close at all-time high, Tata Motors and Bajaj Finance top gainers

Mumbai, Aug 29 (IANS) Indian equity indices closed at an all-time high on Thursday following a strong rally in the auto and IT stocks.

During the trading hours, both Sensex and Nifty reached new all-time highs of 82,285 and 25,192 respectively.

At closing, Sensex was up 349 points, or 0.43 per cent, at 82,134 and Nifty was up 99 points, or 0.40 per cent, at 25,151.

Selling was seen in the midcap and smallcap stocks compared to largecaps.

The Nifty Midcap 100 index closed at 58,883, down 262 points or 0.44 per cent, and the Nifty Smallcap 100 index closed at 19,214, down 105 points or 0.54 per cent.

In the Sensex pack, Tata Motors, Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv, HCL Tech, ITC, Reliance, Tata Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki, Wipro, SBI, Bharti Airtel and HUL were the top gainers. M&M, Sun Pharma, JSW Steel, Kotak Mahindra, Tata Steel, Infosys, UltraTech Cement, and ICICI Bank were the top losers.

The recently listed OLA electric shares witnessed a rough ride to close at Rs 120.28, down 4.30 per cent.

In the NSE indices, Auto, IT, PSU Bank, fin service, FMCG and energy contributed the most, while pharma, metal, media and realty fell the most.

According to market experts, Indian equities began steadily and breached a record high. Volatility disturbed the trend in the afternoon due to Reliance Ltd AGM expectations, but the broad market carried the rally to a new high by the end of the day with rapid improvement in sentiment, they said, adding that the recent uptick in Indian IT and FMCG stocks points to a potential soft landing for the US economy and an improvement in domestic rural consumption.

--IANS